Smartphone manufacturer Honor has teased the reveal of an AI-powered humanoid robot at MWC 2026. The smartphone-centric show gets underway in Barcelona next week.
In a teaser video posted online, the Chinese brand revealed its theme for this year’s event will be “believers in an AI future.” We don’t know much about the device yet, but Honor actually offers a look at the robot and it’s very much in the vein of the Will Smith iRobot movie characters, albeit in matte black rather than white. There’s a camera on its forehead too.
The company has already revealed a Robot Phone – which also appears prominently in the video published today. It’s a handset with a robotic camera arm that can move independently of the device owner, which it plans to tell us more about at the annual mobile showcase.
However, the first humanoid robot is likely to upstage the humble handset when it “steps out of the shadows” at MWC. Sounds quite ominous doesn’t it? I might have chosen some different words, given the pop culture inferences when it comes to artificially intelligent humanoids. But hey-ho.
In a tweet, Honor wrote: “Something revolutionary is about to step out of the shadows. We’ve combined cutting-edge robotics with the ultimate mobile experience. The result? Something you have to see to believe.”
The Robot Phone is also something to keep an eye on during MWC. Teased during the Magic 8 series reveal, it’s reminiscent of the sentient robot Johnny 5 from the Short Circuit movies or Pixar’s Wall-E.
It’ll enable users to capture their environment in a similar way to how users of smart specs are currently able. However, the device will also use AI to follow scenes automatically, or can be commanded to follow something in particular by the user.
The video teaser Honor posted shows the AI robot arm helping its owner choose an outfit, film a sky dive from different perspectives, soothe a crying baby with a game of peek-a-boo, and capture the entire sky while stargazing. The robot also seems like a bit of a ladies robot too, judging by the video where it is depicted following a woman in a red dress that smiled in its direction. Sci-fans might notice nods to The Matrix and Battlestar Galactica. Alluding to unreality perhaps?
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